Send me email updates about messages I've received on the site and the latest news from The CafeMom Team.
By signing up, you certify that you are female and accept the Terms of Service and have read the
Privacy Policy.

15 Ways to Stay Married for 15 Years

***I did not write this, but thought it was something good to share with this group. Glad y'all are enjoying it!

This article was originally published on Lydia Netzer's blog, "Shine Shine Shine," on April 19, 2012.

Today is my fifteenth wedding anniversary. I really love Dan, and I
am proud of how awesome our marriage is. We certainly haven't killed
each other yet. Hell, we haven't even maimed each other. We have not
always been perfect, but we have made two cool kids, and we have always
kept it interesting. For two people as weird and intense as Dan and I
are, staying together this long is a big accomplishment. I know some
people are surprised.

Here we are going in to our reception. I had a big bow on the back of my dress. This is where we met.

When Dan and I got married, we were 25 years old. Now, we're staring
down the barrel of 40. Looking back, I'm surprised we didn't
self-destruct just for the heck of it. Now that we are older, we are
perhaps surprisingly also wiser. Here are the things we have learned
over the years that helped us stay married and even happy for 15 years.
(Beyond that, you're on your own. I can't promise another 15.) Our list
does not resemble the ones you'll find in Cosmo or Ladies' Home Journal.
We have never had a regular date night, nor do we prioritize
"communication" or play sex games or see a therapist. He doesn't bring
me flowers every Thursday and I don't cook his favorite food very often.
But we do have some other ideas.

1. Go to bed mad.

The old maxim that you shouldn't go to bed mad is stupid. Sometimes you
need to just go to freakin' bed. "Let not the sun go down upon your
wrath" is prefaced in the Bible by the phrase "Be angry and sin not."
So, who's to say it doesn't mean "Stay angry, bitches. Don't let the sun
go down on that awesome fierce wrath of yours." Seriously. Whoever
interpreted this to mean that you should stay up after midnight,
tear-stained and petulant, trying to iron out some kind of overtired and
breathy accord -- was stupid. Shut up, go to bed, let your husband get
some sleep. In the morning, eat some pancakes. Everything will seem
better, I swear.

2. Laugh if you can.

In any fight, there is one person who is really mad, and one person
who isn't that mad. That person should deflect the fight. Make a joke,
do something stupid or corny, make the other person laugh. If the fight
is very serious for you and you feel like you really want to plant your
flag and die on this hill, fine. Do it. But if you're fighting for
entertainment, or because you're just reacting, then you be the one to
deflect. Fights are bad. Deflecting a fight whenever possible is a good
idea. When you're the one who's being pissy and raw and the other person
helps you get out of it and brings about peace, that feels fantastic.
This was a hard lesson for me to learn. Letting Dan deflect a fight is
the best thing, now. He does it really well.

3. Don't criticize. Ever.

Here is a fact: Whatever critical thing that you are about to say to
your wife is already being loudly articulated in her head. And if it's
true, she already feels like crap about it. Assuming you married someone
intelligent enough to like you and sane enough to let you put a ring on
it, trust that they are self-aware enough to know when they screwed up.
It may feel good to you in that moment to say the critical thing, let
it go ringing through the air in all its sonorous correctness, but it
will feel awful to hear it. The only, only way it's beneficial to give
your wife criticism of any kind is if you're absolutely positive she is
completely unaware. And you better find the nicest, kindest way possible
to tell her. And even then, good luck convincing her. The recognition
of the thing you are helpfully trying to point out will be INHIBITED,
not facilitated, by your criticism. And then you're the asshole. So be
careful.

4. Be the mirror.

Your husband is the mirror in which you see yourself. And the things
you say to him give him an image of himself too, which he will believe.
You want him to believe it, so make it good. Be a mirror that reflects
something positive: you're smart, you're successful, you're fantastic in
the sack, you're a great provider, you're the best. Can you MAKE him
any of these things just by telling him he is? I don't know, but
consider this: the alternative really sucks. The things my husband says
to me are 1,000 times more convincing than anyone else's opinion on
earth. Don't think he won't believe you because you're married and
you're contractually obligated to say nice things. He'll believe the
shitty, insulting things you say and the gloriously positive things.
Listen to Nico, girls:

5. Be proud and brag.

Let your spouse hear you talking about them in glowing terms to other
people. Be foolish. Be obvious. It will mean everything. You will stay
married forever.

6. Do your own thing.

Dan races bicycles. I write books. I don't race bicycles or have any
desire to race bicycles. He doesn't write books, nor does he even read
the books that I write. Seriously. And I don't care. My opinion is that
he's the fastest, coolest most awesome bike racer ever. His opinion is
that I'm the bestest, coolest writer ever. We don't have to know all
about cycling or writing in order to form these opinions -- in fact,
knowledge of literature or actually reading my book might damage Dan's
opinion of me as "the best writer since the dawn of time." We can still
support each other without being all up in the other person's stuff.
Doing your own thing, having your own friends, being completely insanely
passionate about something that the other person has no idea, really,
about, is awesome. It allows your spouse to be your cheerleader,
uncomplicated by knowledge or personal investment. And it means you'll
always have stuff to talk about, because you're not overlapping all the
time. You don't have to read the same books either. You don't have to
have the same friends.

7. Have kids.

Kids stop you from being as crazy as you want to be. Because when you have kids, you can't be that crazy.

For example, when I had kids, I stopped smoking. Left to right: Susannah, Joshilyn, Dan, Me.

8. Get really good at sex.

You've got all the time in the world to get really, really good, not
just at sex in general, but at having sex with your one particular
husband. You should make it your life's mission to become the perfect
sex machine exactly for him. And he for you. There is no reason to hold
back, or be embarrassed, or not ask questions and get everything working
properly. There's absolutely no excuse for letting years drag on
without becoming fully skilled, gifted sex partners for each other. It
makes everything so much better. Does talking about this make you
uncomfortable? How uncomfortable would it make you to know that your
spouse is secretly, silently "just okay" with your sexual performance?
Yeah. You want to last 15 years, remember? That's a long time to be
mildly happy.

9. Move.

Live in different houses. In different parts of the country. Travel.
Make it so that you can look back and divide up your life into the years
you spent in different cities, or different houses. If you're feeling
stuck geographically or physically, you can confuse yourself into
thinking you're stuck romantically. See your husband in different
places, in different contexts, in different countries even. Try it. Take
him to a mountaintop and give him another look. Pretty sexy. Take him
to a new city and check out his profile. Along the same lines, don't be
afraid to change personally, or let your wife change as a person. Don't
worry about "growing apart." Be brave and evolve. Become completely
different. Don't gather moss. Stagnation is unattractive.

10. Stop thinking temporarily.

Marriage is not conditional. It is permanent. Your husband will be
with you until you die. That is a given. It sounds obvious, but really
making it a given is hard. You tend to think in "ifs" and "thens" even
when you've publicly committed to forever. If he does this, I won't
tolerate it. If I do this, he'll leave me. If I get fat. If I change
jobs. If he says mean things. If he doesn't pay more attention. It's
natural, especially in the beginning of your marriage, to keep those
doubts in your head. But the sooner you can let go of the idea that
marriage is temporary -- and will end if certain awful conditions are
met -- the sooner you will let go of all kinds of conflict and stress.
Yes, you may find yourself in a horrible situation where it's absolutely
necessary to get a divorce. But going into it with divorce in the back
of your mind, even in the way way way back of your mind, is going to
cause a lot of unnecessary angst. Accept that you're going to stay with
him. He's going to stay with you. Inhabit that and figure out how to
make THAT work, instead of living with the "what if"s and "in case
of's."

11. Do not put yourself in trouble's way.

Leave your ex-boyfriends and girlfriends alone. I'm sure you're very
trustworthy. Aren't we all? The thing is, there's absolutely no reason
to test it. Your husband and your marriage are more valuable than any
friendship. Any friendship that troubles the marriage should be over
immediately. Protect it with knives and teeth, not because it's fragile
but because it's precious. Don't ass around with a "hall pass" or a
"harmless flirtation." Adultery isn't an event, it's a process with an
event at the end. Don't put your feet on a path that could lead
someplace bad.

12. Make a husband pact with your friends.

The husband pact says this: I promise to listen to you complain about
your husband even in the most dire terms, without it affecting my good
opinion of him. I will agree with your harshest criticism, accept your
gloomiest predictions. I will nod and furrow my brow and sigh when you
describe him as a hideous ogre. Then when your fight is over and love
shines again like a beautiful sunbeam in your life, I promise to forget
everything you said and regard him as the most charming of princes once
more. The husband pact is very useful because you want to be able to
vent to your friend without having her actually start hating your
husband. Because you don't really mean all those things you say. And
she, the swearer of the pact, knows this.

13. Bitch to his mother, not yours.

This is one I did read somewhere in a magazine, and it's totally
true. His mother will forgive him. Yours never will. If you're a man,
bitch to your friends. They expect it.

14. Be loyal.

All the crap you read in magazines about honesty, sense of humor,
communication, sensitivity, date nights, couples weekends, blah blah
blah can be trumped by one word: loyalty. You and your spouse are a team
of two. It is you against the world. No one else is allowed on the
team, and no one else will ever understand the team's rules. This is
okay. The team is not adversarial, the team does not tear its members
down, the team does not sabotage the team's success. Teammates work
constantly to help and better their teammates. Loyalty means you put the
other person in your marriage first all the time, and you let them put
you first. Loyalty means subverting your whims or desires of the moment
to better meet your spouse's whims or desires, with the full
understanding and expectation that they will be doing the same. This is
the heart of everything, and it is a tricky balance. Sometimes it sways
one way and sometimes the other. Sometimes he gets to be crazy,
sometimes it's your turn. Sometimes she's in the spotlight, sometimes
you. Ups and downs ultimately don't matter, because the team endures.

15. Trust the person you married.

For two people who are trying to help each other, it can almost be
harder to let the other person help you than it is to be the one who's
helping. It can be harder to let the other person deflect the fight than
to be the one deflecting. It can be harder to believe that your husband
is fully committed to a lifetime of marriage than to commit yourself.
Harder to change yourself than to let the other person change. Harder to
be loved than to love. Weird, but true. I'm saying this to everyone
who's newly married, and to myself: trust that person. Love them
completely and let them love you. If it all goes to seed, it's going to
hurt either way. Better to have gone into it full throttle. Full
throttle marriage is a thrilling ride.

I've been married longer then 15 years and firmly believe in never going to bed mad. My grandparents where married 62 years till my grandmother passed, and her first rule was never go to bed mad. Always give a kiss and an I love you. To each their own though, whatever works.

As a newly wed and soon to be mom, I thank you for shareing this and Totally agree with what you have to say. I love my husband with all my heart and i know he loves me. I also know that it will not always be a walk in the park but in my eyes even if that walk is filled with rain, its better to dance in the rain then to let it ruin something SO amazing. Congrats on 15 years and i wish you 15 more.

I LOVE THIS!!! I have had to learn the first one the hard way! I always believed in never going to bed angry and was often the one up sobbing bc my DH had fallen asleep and left me so upset (which of course in my crazy tiredness I took to mean that he didn't care instead of the fact that he had to be at work at 5am!). Now, when I am angry and it is obvious that I will not be happy by bedtime I give him a kiss, say "I love you" and GO TO SLEEP! Often times, I wake up to realize the fight was meaningless and doesn't need to be brought back up!

We go to bed mad at each other, we just don't stay mad and the sex is great.

Quoting Playitagain:

I've been married longer then 15 years and firmly believe in never going to bed mad. My grandparents where married 62 years till my grandmother passed, and her first rule was never go to bed mad. Always give a kiss and an I love you. To each their own though, whatever works.

Ive been married 10 years and agree with almost all of these except the bitching to his mom part. I cant do that. I bitch to my mom and thats fine for us. She still loves my husband--sometimes more than me i think! Lol!

And i really really agree with realizing marriage is permanant. It really does change so much of your thinking. It makes u reconsider stupid small fights that wont matter 5 yers from now--esp when u have kids!

Send me email updates about messages I've received on the site and the latest news from The CafeMom Team.
By signing up, you certify that you are female and accept the Terms of Service and have read the
Privacy Policy.